Bailout Beats Free-Market

President Bush who has overseen the largest government bailout in U.S. history admitted on CNN that he had to abandon free-market principles to save the free-market system and to make sure the economy didn’t collapse.

Yet according to a report from Celent, a Boston-based firm that provides information to the financial services industry the claims of a credit crisis by Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson and Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke had no basis in fact.

As a result of the abandonment of free-market principles the Bush administration has saddled the U.S. taxpayers with an unprecedented level of debt of up to $11 trillion by some estimates with no end in sight to the government’s willingness to fund future bailouts and turn our economy into a socialist system which it already resembles.

The president was admittedly battered and bruised over the last few years by a generally unpopular though mostly successful war, large losses in congressional and senate seats and a constant hammering by the liberal press. But through it all Bush stayed the course economically and allowed the free-markets to operate and flourish. Now even that is gone.

What is even more galling was when Bush told CNN that “I feel a sense of obligation to my successor to make sure there is not a, you know, a huge economic crisis. Look, we’re in a crisis now. I mean, this is — we’re in a huge recession, but I don’t want to make it even worse.” Since when is the outgoing president obligated to help his successor especially when he is from the other party?

I don’t want to see this country suffer any more than we already have, but since Obama promised to fix our economic woes then Bush should let him do his “magic” and not give him a boost, especially since Bush’s help is a betrayal of conservative principles.

Later today I will be attending a speech being given by the president on building a foundation for the future. The problem is that Bush’s recent policy moves have severely weakened the foundation of our economy and whatever he says is likely to ring hollow.